My friend, Lin of "Telling It Like It Is", asked me if I would like to tackle the subject of virtual assistants because she knew that I had a bit of related experience. I hemmed and hawed and mulled it over a bit and decided to take her up on it. The best way to start is tell you exactly what a virtual assistant is without beating around the bush.
What exactly is a "virtual assistant"?
There is no single, stable definition of a virtual assistant, but my basic definition should suffice. A virtual assistant is someone who works from home (usually a home office of some kind) and is considered an independent contractor for tax purposes. A virtual assistant is contracted to a do a job as opposed to being an employee of a company.
While the worldwide web side of the Internet is fast becoming the medium of choice for virtual assistants, virtual assistants are contracted to use other mediums such as telephone landlines with specialized software, electronic mail and VPNs (virtual private networks).
If you've ever encountered a pop up window on a website asking you if you would like to chat, there's a good chance that the person on the other end is a virtual assistant operating from home. My older son worked for a short time as a customer service agent (a virtual assistant by another name) for U-Haul, a personal cargo transportation service. He had to log into a VPN to receive the calls.
Virtual Assistant Opportunities
It isn't known how many people around the world are working as virtual assistants. The numbers, even in the US, are merely guesses based on surveys of businesses which are known to use them.
There are enough virtual assistant opportunities available right now that the contracts cannot adequately be filled by qualified people. You only have to view them on the Craigslist of any major US city to see how many opportunities are available in any given week, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
If you're searching for virtual assistant jobs, you have to be aware that they are only called by that term some of the time, not all of the time. You can find them by searching for that specific term as well as terms like "freelance writer", "web content creator", "virtual office assistant", "virtual personal assistant", "virtual administrative assistant" and others I can't think of at the moment.
I would be doing you a disservice if I neglected to mention a website from which I receive RSS e-mail on an irregular basis, whydowork.com, because it exists to support home job opportunities. In fact, the latest blog post was about a virtual assistant opportunity that you can only understand by reading the post and by visiting the website mentioned.
Another place to look, especially for writing jobs, is Elance. Yes, there are opportunities there that I would classify as virtual assistant jobs.
If you own a computer, and I hope you do since you're reading this, and you can read, write and speak whatever language is required of you (and you're not completely computer illiterate), I recommend you take the time to open your mind and investigate any opportunity that may take you away from the drudgery of working for someone else (except contractually). I have a few friends online who work as freelance writers and virtual assistants and they like it. I can't say the same thing for friends at traditional jobs.
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This article is published as: Virtual Assistant Opportunities
Virtual assistants free up a lot of time for you – time you can spend on growing your business rather than just concentrating on working 'in' the business…
I'm not really a freelancer but I still call myself as a virtual assistant. I get all the perks as one- working at home- does, minus the benefit of her own freezer and PC. I am currently working right now at TryBPO Philippines and opportunities are overwhelming. I got another name for myself though, Virtual Analyst. Yes it's true, VA is one broad term we all are known as and may differ along the way as our job description varies.
Melissa recently posted..BPO Philippines- Indispensable Business Process Outsourcing Hub
Hi Count me in …VA here from the Philippines! Thanks to the internet and we can work at while at home. I am one that benefited of these new job era :). I don't use craigslists because there are lots of scammers there. I was hired by someone, introduce his self as a project manager. He wants me to search for competitors…after one month he just disappeared..ggrrrr….
Virtual assistants can be vulnerable to unethical employers since the transactions happen almost exclusively online. That makes it very easy for an employer to run off with a VA's work, such as research data or transcription, without paying.
MicroSourcing recently posted..Asian BPOs Expected to Grow 17.9% in 2011
@microsourcing, that's true! For now, If somebody or potential clients wants a project to get done, I directed them to freelance sites and ask for milestone payment for every task I've done to them.. I learn my lesson so now :)
Thanks for sharing this post. It is very true that virtual assistant can free up your time. You can delegate to her whatever kind of tasks that can be done online and free up yourself from stress too. :)
Bob Smith recently posted..Web development and Internet Marketing